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Emanuel Lasker

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Chess Champ

The Resume

    (December 24, 1868-January 11, 1941)
    Born in Berlinchen, Prussia (now Barlinek, Poland)
    World chess champion (1894-1921)
    Wrote 'The Encyclopedia of Games' (1929)
    Invented the checkers variant Laska

Why he might be annoying:

    His demands for large fees delayed or prevented several highly anticipated World Championship matches.
    He invested his winnings in German war bonds that became worthless after WWI.
    Coincidentally, he wrote a book claiming civilization would be endangered if Germany lost the war.

Why he might not be annoying:

    A rival said, 'Lasker occasionally looses a game, but he never looses his head.'
    He earned a PhD in math and co-developed a theorem that became one of the bases of modern algebra.
    He and his wife fled Germany after the Nazis took over, arrived in the USSR just before the Great Purge, and finally settled in the US.
    He was good friends with Albert Einstein, who called him 'undoubtedly one of the most interesting people I came to know in my later years.'

Credit: C. Fishel


Featured in the following Annoying Collections:

Year In Review:

    For 2024, as of last weekly ranking, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2022, Out of 2 Votes: 0% Annoying
    In 2021, Out of 8 Votes: 75.00% Annoying
    In 2019, Out of 8 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2018, Out of 1 Votes: 100% Annoying
    In 2017, Out of 6 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2016, Out of 4 Votes: 25.00% Annoying
    In 2015, Out of 4 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2014, Out of 9 Votes: 55.56% Annoying
    In 2013, Out of 16 Votes: 56.25% Annoying
    In 2012, Out of 9 Votes: 66.67% Annoying
    In 2011, Out of 12 Votes: 50.0% Annoying
    In 2010, Out of 19 Votes: 63.16% Annoying
    In 2009, Out of 9 Votes: 11.11% Annoying